bobquasit | Gaming at Arisia 2006

There has been a lot of talk about the state of gaming at Arisia 2006 over on the Yahoo Boston Gamers board;

unquietsoul5 first brought the issue up there, I think, and also mentioned it in his journal (the post is friendslocked).

The problem is that gaming is being moved out of Stanbro, which is a large public room at the center of the con, and is being moved into a series of conference rooms up on the relatively obscure fourth floor. You can read more about it on the board.

I've only made a few comments there - I'm more of a lurker, and rarely read the board at all - but I made one suggestion which was apparently useful: that a board be placed next to Stanbro listing the games on the fourth floor.

In retrospect, though, that really isn't an adequate solution. So I made the following post:

The worst part of moving gaming off the Mezz is that it will make gaming invisible to a large part of the con. The fourth floor is more difficult to reach, and if things are set up the way that they were the last time that gaming was moved there, the game rooms will be off at the extreme end of a corridor - effectively nowhere. People won't be passing by, won't be aware that there IS any gaming at the con. Effectively, it was a kind of internal exile.

A large sign-up board down near Stanbro would help a little...but probably not enough. For one thing, it wouldn't be practical unless someone stood by the board constantly, calling up changes to a gaming coordinator on the fourth floor. That's not likely to happen.

And there's a HUGE difference between seeing games listed on a board, and actually seeing the games. A newbie would have to be pretty desperate to push through the crowds and make it up to a distant corner on the fourth floor, whereas they can't help but see gaming when they walk by Stanbro. So my guess is (and I'm not attributing malice to anyone, or anything like that; I'm not on the ConCom), gaming is going to take a pretty serious hit in participation at Arisia this year.

And that increases the chance that it will receive still less consideration from the con next year; after all, you can't expect them to support unpopular events! (/sarcasm - sorry, couldn't help myself)

Are there any other ameliorating factors that could be implemented?

Coffee service, maybe. Soda and snacks might help. Of course, the problem is that if those things are equally available elsewhere, people won't bother to make the trek to fourth floor gaming for them. And it's not like you can ban those things from the rest of the con.

What's more, people would have to somehow be informed that that was the place to go for snacks. Hell, you'd probably need to put the con suite right in the middle of gaming in order to draw even a quarter of the same foot traffic as at Stanbro. And realistically, the effect would not even be 1/4 as good; most people would simply get food and leave. We've all seen enough cons to know that food is a lousy inducement to get people to do anything other than stop by, load up, and take off with minimal eye contact.

Would a lot of publicity help? Probably not much. Posters and signs and announcements don't have the same impact as actually seeing people having fun playing a game.

So what WOULD work? The only thing that I can think of would be to set up something really cool, something so compelling that everyone at the con would want to see it. Last year some guys set up a sort of cool-looking room with a huge castle wall and fake flames; I don't know what they were promoting, but it was definitely pretty neat-looking. Something like that, only more complex and involving, would be perfect.

The problem is, we don't HAVE anything like that. And we're not likely to find one.

So the upshot is, while it would certainly be nice for the con to take whatever ameliorating steps they can for gaming at Arisia, realistically there is GOING to be a diminishment this year. The only real solution is for those who care to get involved in the next Arisia VERY early, get on the ConCom or whatever, and push to increase the exposure of gaming at Arisia 2007 - put it back in Stanbro if at all possible.

I don't know how likely that is, though.

->Peter

There have been no responses yet, but it has only been about twenty minutes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I just read your post on the subject in BG a few minutes ago. I didn't respond there because Dan doesn't want me waging war once again, and thought I had more or less expressed my feelings on the whole thing adequately in my previous posts in the threads.

It's another case that the gamers are damned. Damned if they speak up and complain and try to get things fixed, damned to obscurity and frustration if they don't (and continued reductions in space and importance at the convention).

We've been here before. We've been thru this before. Unless the gamers revolt and take their money and effort out of the pool, the Arisia head honchos won't notice and will continue with more of the same. That's why after last year I decided I wasn't coming back and wasn't recommending Arisia to any of the authors I know. That's why I'm pushing on Vericon. At least half of the events at Vericon are gaming related, the chairs actually listen to me (an outsider and non-alum of Harvard) and things actually get improved.

You have to hurt them where their cash flow to get them to listen. They've had 2 bad years financially in a row and are heading towards a third at Arisia. Sometimes, to save something, you have to risk destroying it.

I hate to say this, but my gut feeling is that even if gamers as a group boycott Arisia, the people in charge won't care and probably won't even notice. I don't think that the gaming community at Arisia is big enough to make a real difference in the con's bottom line.

Of course, at this point I don't even know if I'll be going; the last thing I heard was a cryptic, slightly threatening response in the Arisia LJ that seemed to imply that I might not be a panelist this year. To be honest, I don't think it was aimed particularly at me, and I don't know if the person who made the comment is in any way connected with the con; but the implication I took away was that a lot of regular panelists will be eliminated.

Of course, when I say something like that it's important to remember that this is pure speculation. And that my other name is Cassandrea. :D

Gaming at Arisia 2006

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